Official opinions of the Attorney General of Montana: 1897/98, Helena, var. state printers, 1898–. (Prior to 1887 the functions of territorial
attorney general in Montana Territory were fulfilled by various county district attorneys on an ex officio basis. The statehood constitution of 1889
provided for an office of state attorney general. The first A.G report was issued for 1890 and the first opinions appeared in the report volume for 1897/98.
Thereafter reports and opinions were published biennially, with publication appearing to cease with the volume of 1991/92. With the biennial volume
for 1908/10 the books began to be marked on their spine, although not on their title pages, with successive “volume numbers,” starting with “2”. This
does not appear to have had any practical significance until “Vol. 31,” 1965; from which point the opinions are numbered using the volume number and a
serial number: e.g. “Volume 31, Opinion No. 5.” However, since the bulk of the run is organized by date, LLMC has chosen to follow its usual practice
of tagging all of the printed Montana A.G. opinions by biennial date. From 1996 opinions are available on the Montana Office of the Attorney General
website. In the online offering the opinions continue to utilize the volume numbering of the bound volumes. In many of states the original paper
versions of the attorney generals’ reports and opinions were sometimes published together, sometimes separately, sometimes interspersed with other matter;
while in some years only reports or only opinions were published, making for a confusing literature. To minimize this confusion in its online
offerings, LLMC has chosen to group all of the U.S. state attorney generals’ reports and opinions in two separate series for each state. For the Montana A.G.
Reports, see the separate Reports series elsewhere on this site.)
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